Comment by OldMatey
15 days ago
What a disaster this will be. The end of any really open phones. By the time I cannot sideload apps or torrent onto my device, I might as well move to an iPhone and at least get less data tracking and better security.
15 days ago
What a disaster this will be. The end of any really open phones. By the time I cannot sideload apps or torrent onto my device, I might as well move to an iPhone and at least get less data tracking and better security.
Consider trying Ubuntu Touch, very active community and fun if you're interested to be a developer.
Jumping from a shark to another is maybe not the solution we should aim for.
I released an app on the Ubuntu Touch store: took a minute to fill in the form and then you get people giving you feedback/help if anything doesn't work (since you can link your source code too).
Nice that's still moving forward!
What's the current state of hardware? Is there a phone that's decent at being a phone, with an OK camera and a battery that last through the day running Ubuntu?
What's the current state of Waydroid? Any chance to get my banking apps running, or at least standard fare like public transit apps?
I recently got a FairPhone 5 and it is working pretty well, especially for the price.
UbuntuTouch as an OS is quite refreshing as it's not just a copy of Google/Samsung/Apple UIs. I like how they use the sidebars.
Definitely it still needs more work on getting more devices fully supported but that's an ever going effort, since OEM do not provide any help here (for now).
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I don't understand, what's the point of reinventing UI and apps from scratch when there is Android Open Source, with GUI and millions of apps? Wouldn't it be better to cut away all the telemetry from AOSP, add a custom wallpaper and call it a day?
Look at it from both sides. Ubuntu has a vibrant ecosystem of software (commonly known as the Debian repositories, with some attempts at launching their on on top like PPA and Snap)
Launching a mobile OS with all that software already available was miles better than what Android can offer today: loads of things exist open source for Debian that haven't been recreated as an Android app (closed or open) because the OS doesn't allow it anyway. Let alone when the project was started in 2011!
Conversely, in the 14 years that Ubuntu Touch now exists, Android developers have been busy and you'll now find mobile software that can do things that laptops can't, e.g. because they're not normally put in a car as a navigation device and don't normally have GNSS built in. So now we're in a state where you'd think: why not take AOSP and run with it? But fourteen years ago you'd think: wouldn't it be amazing if we could just run all of our tried and true software on a phone? (Fwiw, that's exactly what I did when I got my first Android (and still do today): get root and install a Debian userspace to run tools within, such as Restic for backups. I compiled a Bitcoin miner for ARM back in the day just because that would be fun and cool. There's so much you can do when you have a Linux distribution in your pocket!)
So I see your point, but consider the history. My understanding is that this project comes from a time when it made perfect sense. By now, though, I wonder the same. But I haven't tried Ubuntu Touch yet so I can't really speak ill of it and say we should use AOSP instead of them
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Yes and it has already been done: https://e.foundation/ You can also buy a phone preloaded with it: https://shop.fairphone.com/the-fairphone-gen-6-e-operating-s...
Good luck running AOSP without Google Play Services.
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i guess it would be 'trying' indeed, as per usual it would mean that i'd need multiple devices. 2FA, e-Banking, messaging, instant payment apps and more would probably be missing, right?
Anything that is not native and Android-based can be run with Waydroid. Of course it depends on how intertwined with the OS but it would be interesting to try.
If you were to pick 3 apps which you needed to have running to switch, what would they be? (if too personal, pick from your top 10)
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Its not that these things are missing, it's that it's physically impossible to implement them. That's done on purpose, so you're forced onto your current phone for the foreseeable future.
they've been waiting long for this moment to make us all addicted
ubuntu touch requires you to twrp which might not be available to your device
You can see here the supported devices
https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/
I'll never reward Apple with another dime. They started and normalized this. Plus whatever rights Apple takes away next, Android will likely continue to lag behind in implementing for years.
I don't believe for one second that Google is doing this because Apple does so too. They would have done so long ago. I would rather bet this has to do with recent political shifts that are also pushing for mandatory digital IDs and spying on encrypted messages (see UK and EU). This and Windows 11 depending on certain hardware are all pointing in one direction: a war on general computing.
And Apple has been in the forefront to normalized the "a war on general computing" for more than a decade now.
15 years ago this is exactly what we said was going to happen with the normalization of Apple's locked down ecosystems, and now here we are.
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It is strange that this is happening all at once. Pretty much no major advances in the war on general purpose computing for the past decade, but in 2025 there are a number of major attempts to lock everything down.
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>"a war on general computing"
This. It gives too much freedom to people.
> The end of any really open phones.
One could argue whether Phones with the Google android were ever really open.
As for the really really open phone with alternative OS or Linux based OS, they will continue to exist as before. Perhaps even become more popular after this?
> One could argue whether Phones with the Google android were ever really open.
In recent years, you can argue that android has no longer been open. In the early years of Android that argument would be much harder to make. To be clear, I am not talking hardcore FOSS libre open. But meaningfully open for the end user to do what they want on their device without much restriction. Early android didn't have sandboxing, had no permission system, was easy to root, etc.
Certainly with Nexus devices you had pretty much the freedom to what you wanted.
Could it have been more open? Sure, but I feel like it is almost disingenuous to say it was never if we are comparing it to the real world situation we find ourselves in today.
Early android did have sandboxing and a permission system. It's just that you had to accept all permissions on app install. (Which is still a lot better than common practice on the contemporary desktop.)
That didn't make the system less open though. The user gets to make an informed (or not) choice.
What was different is that the Play store back then was basically a free-for-all. There was no meaningful approval process. This did contribute to making the system as a whole more open, but at a cost...
Doubling the number of people on a custom ROM dose not nearly balance the loss of options for those that remain on a stock ROM. I do not want my less technical family to have to give away all the genuine (though imperfect) safety the Play Store currently provides.
tbc I think F-Droid is much _more_ secure than Play. What I am saying is I have many family members who can just about follow the rule "First search F-Droid then search Play". No, they are not going to use a phone with only F-Droid software*. Most will probably take the deal with the Devil; and those that won't, even if they chose a great ROM, will end up using apkpure.com and be substantially less secure.
* Guessing you have to search for Fennec to get a relatively respectful Browser is one thing; no banking, doctors, taxi apps rules out anyone who has ever run stock.
But then you will have to deal with lots of shit from Apple, because they do everything they can to prevent their ecosystem to interact with open source solutions and to make it difficult for normis to get data off their phone, so that after a couple of years the phones are always full and a new one "needs to be bought".
iPhones are terrible with their link to an icloud account and their terrible repair situation with hardware component pairing.
I had an iPhone 7 for testing I bought on eBay. I had my icloud account logged into it. One day, I couldn't log in to the account despite having a correct password - "account is locked and cannot be used". It won't let me log off from the account on the device. So now I have an icloud-locked e-waste paperweight. It was an old device so I don't care much but purely on this experience I am not buying an apple device ever again.
I hope there will be more truly open devices in the future eventually... otherwise I will just start considering smartphones being 2FA/banking bullshit proprietary tracking/spying devices and avoid use them sporadically..